XXV
She had to share him. She didn't want to. No, she wanted to coax him into her bed and wallow in the sweet secrets of his body, wrap herself in his scent and his taste and his pleasure and fall asleep to the music of his heartbeat beneath her ear. But beyond that door waited his household, his grieving younger sisters, a prostitute-and-stable-boy-turned-Vicomte, and a transplanted Persian. At the tentative rap of Madame Villon on the door, Erik heaved a sigh and retied the mask, offering her a rueful grin.
"Duty calls, love. Will you come with me?" Christine wrestled down the surge of fear that filled her at the thought of him leaving her sight.
"I'd follow you anywhere," she said. Taking his proffered hand, Christine enjoyed the heady feeling of being drawn against his lean body. A low, delicious ache throbbed in her belly, sweetly aware of everywhere they touched. Erik felt the same; she could see it in that languorous look. Christine stood on tiptoe and stole another lingering kiss, her tongue tangling lusciously with his.
"Minx." He breathed the word against her lips, his voice like the taste of cream and honey. Caught in chaotic, surging happiness, Christine laughed. He was alive and he loved her. She supposed she could share him.
It was only as she descended the stairs in his arms that she could see the change in the entire estate. All of them were happier, kinder, more alive when he was there to order and tease and soothe them. During supper, he greeted his staff by name and voiced his commands with a beguiling mixture of warmth and sternness. That same sternness was evident when Elise questioned her bedtime. He relented all too easily when the little girl's lip quivered, in Christine's opinion. Content to simply bask in her glow of happiness, Christine trailed after the trio, watching as Erik nestled between his sisters to read them a story.
The grandeur of the de Chagny manor was evident even in this simple, auxiliary parlor. The fireplace was large enough to roast a boar in, the mantle crafted of fine, blue-veined marble. Erik and his sisters lounged on a thick carpet before a crackling fire. The shadows cast odd, undulating shapes over the floor and Christine rested contentedly in their shade, drowsing to the golden croon of his voice. It was a silly tale of a princess with glass slippers that both sisters adored. More than once, Christine felt Jacqueline's questing glance and shrank back. She couldn't bear that hard look of judgment. Not now, when he was here.
Once Erik finished the story, he turned and smiled at her. Christine's heart lurched, her whole being lighting up at being the center of his attention. He rose, his catlike grace marred by a slight stiffness. Christine felt her smile stretch in tandem with his proximity. Her cheeks ached with the unexpected burden of so many smiles.
"I have a gift for you, love."
"You are gift enough for a lifetime, Erik." The words flew from her lips before she could stop them. They sounded trite and girlish, but his soft, stunned look stifled her embarrassment. He brushed her cheek gently with the backs of his fingers, cupping her jaw, drawing her chin up for a cloud-soft kiss.
"Still, I must warn you that I plan to shower you with gifts at every opportunity." His drawling, teasing voice made her shiver.
"Lucky me," she said, buoyed by wild, almost drunken joy. Green eyes crackled with mirth and held up one finger.
"One moment."
Elise, giddy and giggling, trotted at his heels out of the room to the foyer, miles from sleep. Christine rose from the chair, her joints complaining. The warmth of the fire beckoned and she settled onto the edge of the rug beside Jacqueline. Erik's twelve year old sister rested in an oddly self-protective posture, sitting with her legs drawn up against her chest, arms wrapped around them, chin set on her upraised knees. Christine felt the grief yawning in Jacqueline like an open wound. So young to have her blue eyes clouded with sorrow as they stared into the fire for answers, to have her unbraided hair spilling down her back and concealing her expression like a mourning veil.
"I am sorry, Jacqueline." Such wan, weak words.
"For what? For almost killing my brother?" the words were softly spoken, barely audible over the fire's crackling, but they struck Christine like one of Bruno's fists.
"W—What?" she said.
Jacqueline addressed the fire in the same fierce, low voice: "You heard me. If he hadn't gone looking for you, he wouldn't have gotten hurt. If he had been home, Aunt Claire wouldn't have died."
Christine swallowed hard, tears leaking from the corners of her eyes. Was she the architect of Jacqueline's misery as Madame had been the architect of Christine's? It was a horrifying thought. She took in a breath to offer a paltry defense when Erik returned with Elise, Raoul and the Persian at his heels. Christine ruthlessly stuffed her hurt and guilt back, summoning her former easy smile. But not quickly enough. She saw Erik's eyes narrow, his smile falter as he cast a glance at Jacqueline. Christine subtly shook her head, silently pleading with him to drop it. A muscle fired in his jaw, but Erik knelt on the carpet before her without demur.
"Your gift, love," Erik said, producing a case. Christine sucked in a gasp. She knew that battered, dusty case: the seam torn along one corner, revealing a peek of the moth-eaten red velvet interior, the initials G.D. rubbed smooth on the worn handle . . .
"Is that . . . ?"
"I rescued it, along with something else you left behind," he said, offering a small blue-bound book.
"Oh Erik!" Her voice broke over his name.
"What? What is it? Do you like your present, Christine?" Elise's bright voice intruded and Christine gathered the little girl into her lap with a soggy laugh.
"Yes, Elise! It's my father's violin. It's one of my most prized possessions. And Erik made this book for me," Christine whispered, accepting the case and book with a reverence of a holy object.
"You must play for us!" Elise suggested, to a chorus of agreement from Jacqueline, Raoul and the Persian.
Reluctance radiated from Erik's kneeling form and he stared down at his hands braced on his knees. Christine followed his gaze and saw the slight tremor of his left hand. Compassion squeezed her heart. They both had lost their music, and feared conjuring a weak shadow of the perfection they'd once wrought together.
"Please play, Erik. I'd like to sing with you." The poignancy of her beloved playing her father's violin touched her soul, as did the look of hope and fear and love that Erik gifted her with.
"Truly, Christine?"
"Truly." Dropping a glancing, indulgent kiss on Elise's wild hair, Christine slowly, painfully rose to stand beside her love. Erik opened the case and rosined the bow with the utmost care, as if playing with the finest instrument in all the world. Christine loved him for his thoughtfulness and forgot her fear as the bow touched the strings and his music washed over her.
XXX
Their song was simple, the notes familiar, and soon Erik forgot his trepidation as his fingers danced over the strings. If there was sluggishness in his damaged fingers, he found he cared little. It had been too long since he played, since he lost himself in the simple yet profound pleasure of creating. Only once before had he shared that pleasure with Christine and the experience was a heady one. His brave beloved, offering her tortured voice to soothe his fear. The love that pierced him was almost agony. His battered angel, his wounded little lamb.
The violin crooned to her a psalm of comfort, of tenderness. And when she sang . . . Erik was assaulted anew with a vision of her glorious soul, beauty couched between the raspy, halting notes. Far from ruined, her voice held a new pathos: the crystalline soprano of an unspoiled Eve transformed into a mezzo-soprano filled with the pain of a fallen existence. Rich and elegant, she soared . . . Borne on the wings of inspiration, Erik's voice rose in harmony with hers, souls joining, tangling together. Her beautiful eyes found his and the world fell away. Together, their regret and pain were made beautiful. Only when her father's violin sang the last note did the spell break. A dazzling smile split Christine's bruised face and his heart burst as she mouthed the words 'I love you.'
"That was beautiful." Elise said, round blue eyes looking between Erik and his beloved with something like awe.
"Indeed. Allah has blessed the two of you with an extraordinary gift." Nadir said solemnly. Raoul could only smile, dazed and happy.
"Thank you, Monsieur Kahn. You are too kind," Christine said, moving closer to Erik, obviously uncomfortable with the attention. Erik drew an arm around her, dropping a glancing, negligent kiss in her hair. With a sigh, she melted against his side. God, the taste of Christine's adoration was a potent brew; one Erik could easily get drunk on. Madame Villon bustled into the room, bracing her weathered hands on her hips.
"It is half past eleven o' clock in the evening! Whatever else you have to talk about can keep until morning. Off to bed with all of you!"
As if on cue, Elise loosed a jaw-cracking yawn. She offered sleepy hugs and sloppy kisses, first to Erik, then Christine, then Raoul. Her elder sister followed without a word. There was a moment of tension when Jacqueline disengaged from Erik. A strange hardness glittered in her eye as she regarded Christine. A muscle fluttered in Christine's jaw as she spread her arms open. The elder de Chagny daughter snatched a swift, perfunctory embrace. Erik made a note to speak with his sister in the morning. Warm good night wishes were shared amongst the adults; Erik's ribs groaned under Raoul's fierce embrace. As they trickled from the parlor, Madame Villon turned to Erik.
"There is a bath waiting for you in your quarters, Sir. And ah . . ." the old housekeeper cleared her throat delicately, "I have moved your things to the master suite, Christine dear."
"Th—thank you, Madame Villon." A blush stained Christine's cheeks. Erik's chest swelled and he wanted to crow that this beautiful creature was his and his alone.
"Yes, thank you Madame. Good evening," Erik said, offering her a saucy wink. Chuckling, the housekeeper bustled from the room. Erik carefully returned the violin to its resting place.
"Shall we?" he folded her hand into his.
Carrying her up the stairs toward his rooms harkened thoughts of carrying a bride across the threshold. Erik longed for it to be true. His wounds ached, but he bore her slight weight like the precious burden it was. They walked in silence as the darkness and cold gathered around them. The Comte's bedroom suite lorded over the third floor.
"Here we are." He shouldered his way through the cracked door and set Christine on her feet. He closed and locked the door, leaning against its solid comfort as Christine laid both book and violin on the bedside table. Erik followed her gaze around the room. A fire roared in the grate, warming the cavernous space and casting the bath and massive barge of a bed in gold and red.
"It's beautiful," she said, turning to smile at him. Erik had always thought the deep green bedding and hangings matched with the dark, lush carpet swallowed all the light and made the room dark and grim. But seeing her here and free and limned with the fire's loving gold, Erik couldn't help but agree.
A deep, abiding weariness made him ache down to his very marrow, but her presence sank into skin and flesh and nerve, wakening that bewildering mixture of love and lust. The same notion crackled in her eyes and she stepped close, peeling off the mask. Erik couldn't conceal the years-old flinch, but was swiftly soothed by her kiss. She fed him words of love along with the pleasure of her lips and tongue.
"Christine," he whispered, disengaging gently from the ripe temptation of her mouth. Before drowning too deeply in her, he needed to cleanse himself of the past week's horrors.
"I am filthy, love."
Christine's nose wrinkled endearingly.
"You do need a bath," she agreed, plucking at the limp, stained linen of his shirt.
His body reacted predictably to Christine's hands divesting him of his clothing, so Erik swiftly stepped into the bath to stifle the temptation to simply take her. The hot water was heavenly, though Christine as his bathing attendant proved to be devilish torture. She interspersed the sweeps of the soaped cloth with kisses; warm, soapy fingers kneaded his scalp with the delicate scrape of nail. More than once she 'dropped' the soap and innocently groped in the murky water to retrieve it.
His wicked love, she tried her best to distract him while he shaved under the pretext of turning down the bed. Erik loved the playfulness of their little game, loved drawing out his restraint into a pleasurable agony, loved watching her from the reflection of his small shaving mirror.
"Done," he rasped, swiping the vestiges of shaving soap from his face, tossing both straight-bladed razor and mirror onto the stool beside the bathtub. Pale, delicate arms wound around his waist, hands splayed on his bare belly. Moist breath fluttered between his damp shoulder blades, cool then warm, cool then warm. Lips grazed the skin just below his injury. The bullet hole had finally closed into a small, round scab; Bruno's slashes were similarly healing.
"Does it hurt?" she whispered. Erik threaded his fingers through hers and drew her hand up to drop a kiss on her palm, before pressing that hand over his heart. He stifled the impulse to wrap that hand around his throbbing cock. They would take their time.
"Only a little. I'm fine, love. I promise." Her fingers kneaded his skin; lips dropped soft, grazing kisses on his back, wandering up until she delicately bit the muscle joining his neck and shoulder.
"Make love to me, Erik."
Erik was honestly unsure how they moved from the bath to the bed, but soon Christine was beneath him, hot and sweet and eager. Free and alive and together, Erik knew there was no joy more profound.
"Christine," he crooned, cradling her precious, beautiful, battered face. His lips cherished the bruises, her poor nose, the line of her abused jaw as she had once cherished the horror of his own visage. Was this the tenderness she felt? Had she ached to draw his pain into herself and erase the memory of it? Her hips pulsed in mute pleading, her hands sought to tease and pleasure, but Erik gently batted them away. He would worship every inch of her, name each bit of flesh exquisite and lovely in his sight. Erik peeled the shift from her and his heart lurched at the sight of mottled bruises and his locket resting between her breasts.
Words of endearment and broken whispers of her name punctuated his kisses. God, he loved the taste of her skin, the throb of her heartbeat beneath his lips, the subtle vibration of her soft cries. The locket gleamed and Erik was struck by the sheer rightness of it. A totem of love and protection, it was only right that his love should wear it against her heart. Her breasts beckoned him and he lavished them with lips and tongue and the faint rasp of teeth, nuzzling and licking and suckling. A fragment of a thought pierced the lust: he imagined her body ripe with his child, breasts heavy and lush. Would she cradle him to her heart and nourish him with her milk as she would their child? The thought impaled him with a deep, painful longing.
"Erik . . . Erik . . ." his name was a chant on her passion-swollen lips, growing more feverish as he kissed his way down her belly. His mouth watered, longing to slake his lust with the taste of her nectar. His skin felt thin, lust a hard, urgent heartbeat in his cock. When Erik lowered his mouth to her, Christine screamed. A smug male smile touched his lips, grateful for the room's thick walls and the fact that all the other bedrooms were on a separate floor.
Coherent thought vanished, smashed into shards of taste, smell and texture, creating a sensual mosaic of pleasure. Her fingernails gouged his scalp, muscles strung taut and quivering in time with the languid strokes of his tongue. He urged her climax with his tongue, inwardly chanting: more, more, more! More musk and sweetness, more heat and texture, more pleasure. Erik renewed his attack, adding the slow surge of his fingers inside her, crooked gently seeking that sweet spot . . . her wail was one of a most exquisite anguish and Christine shattered in his arms, sobbing with pleasure.
Triumphant, Erik rose over her, seeking to share the taste of her glory. Ah, he loved the feel of her skin pressed against his, sharing heat, the faint sticky slick of sweat and pleasure. Christine whimpered, their tongues tangling as she sought out her taste at the corners of his mouth. When they broke away to breathe, Erik beheld her in awe. Sleepy brown eyes met his with that look of naked adoration, almost . . . worship. It was a wonderful, terrifying feeling that Christine worshipped him with the same ardor that he did her. She shifted beneath him, legs winding around his hips.
"Please . . . please . . ." she whimpered. Bracing his weight on his good arm, Erik found his way home.
"Chris—Christine!" he cried, working himself inside with short, agonizing thrusts. Scalding pleasure enveloped his length, silken and wet and so tight. God in Heaven, how was she this tight? His toes nearly curled in hedonistic delight. Erik's hips rocked and pulsed, savoring the sensation. A circular, grinding thrust made her gasp and writhe.
"So good . . . so good . . ." he rasped. Erik found their rhythm, deep and slow and hard. Sharing breath, they watched the pleasure build in each other's eyes. Their passion burned too hot and soon Christine came apart around him, her muscles squeezing, squeezing him. Arching in ecstatic pain, his orgasm burst from him, filling her up with his seed. For a sweet eternity, they writhed together, drawing out the shuddering aftershocks, mouths meeting in sloppy, languid kisses. With a shaky sigh, Erik gathered her to his chest, burrowing beneath the heap of down coverlets.
"I love you," she whispered, kissing his chest.
"And I love you," he answered, tilting her chin up to taste her mouth. Erik dropped into a deep, restful sleep, at last knowing peace of mind and soul.
XXX
Christine woke sometime in the night to a darkness so complete it was like the inside of a tomb. Centuries ago, such darkness would have frightened her, but she had since learned the truth of monsters, and of men. Lips moved over her brow, soothing away the tension that had built in her limbs.
"I . . . I had thought that . . . that you might have grown to love Raoul. In my . . . absence." Erik's voice was barely a whisper, as if he hoped she was still asleep and deaf to his confession. Christine surged up, seeking his face in the dark. She could see nothing the faint wet gleam of his eyes, the chiseled angle of his jaw. Her mind presented her with the crystal clear image of Raoul's passionate pleas, callused hands moving over freshly bathed skin. Whore, accused a voice.
"Oh Erik," Christine rasped, hot tears clogging her throat. His hands rose, idly toying with her hair, imbuing tentative comfort in the almost casual touch. Christine melted down onto him, clumsily kissing his chin, his jaw before finding the haven of his mouth. A deep throb of pleasure settled between her thighs as hands reclaimed the terrain of each other's bodies. Christine littered his jawline and neck with kisses, feeling the pitted skin and twisted muscle of his deformed side before settling near his ear.
"I think I was born loving you, Erik. I'll never ever stop. Raoul, he . . . he wanted me."
"And . . . you took . . . comfort in one another?" Aching, piercing sadness coated the words, so haltingly spoken.
"No," she said emphatically, "we did not. I couldn't. Not when I knew what it could be with someone you love." Tension melted from him, an exhaled breath sounding close to a sob.
"Good. I didn't relish the thought of thrashing my little brother so soon after finding him again." The joke was a feeble one, but they both laughed. Easy, familiar warmth settled between them and Christine snuggled happily against him. Soothed by his heartbeat, by the rise and fall of his chest, by his fingers combing her hair, she whispered: "I am sorry about Claire." Erik's pain breathed in his silence.
"As am I. She loved me, you know. Both loved and hated me. Isn't that a strange thing?" A shoot of jealousy unfurled in Christine's heart, but she stomped on it. Claiming his mouth in a lingering, possessive kiss, Christine nestled against him in their cocoon of warmth beneath the coverlet. Mine. Mine, and I know the worth of him, she snarled at the specter lingering between them.
"Tell me," she said.
The story tumbled free from his lips, beginning when they parted, through the deaths of his father and Claire, through his trial with Bruno, his suffering at the thought of her broken. Christine cradled him against her heart as he wept, crooning nonsense words of comfort. In turn, she told him of the dread of waiting for him, of Raoul's confession, her anguish and reckless grief, cajoling Bruno to violence. Erik's golden voice smoothed balm over her soul's wounds and Christine felt the last of the pain ebb as healing and comfort washed over her. Touches of love, imparting solace, seamlessly melded into ones of desire, imparting quiet longing. Together they made a soft harmony of sighs and moans, the wet sounds of their joining, a ballet of touch, pleasure and motion culminating in shattering, breathless completion.
As her heartbeat slowed and she drifted toward sleep in her beloved's arms, she heard the breath of the most beautiful words in the world crooned against the crown of her head: "Will you marry me, Christine?" She hummed, nuzzling his chest.
"Yes," she whispered.
A/N: Aw, aren't they sweet? The end is near with this story, my lovelies. Thank you so much for all the reviews and favorites.