He can barely hear Christine sinking to the floor over the great pounding in his chest. His fingertips twitch, his ears ring, and if he didn't know any better, he would've sworn that death has finally come to claim him.
How close! How unbelievably close he had been to her heaving breast, and her greedy lips, and those mischievous fingers that had busied themselves on the nape of his neck! It's the last of those three that been his utter undoing, that had stolen the air right out of his lungs. Yet here alone under the stars, with the breeze lapping away at the flush Christine had branded onto his skin, Erik still cannot remember how to breathe.
He presses his eyelids shut against the agonizing sound of Christine swallowing back sobs of humiliation. He has to fix this, or he may lose her. And God help him if he does, because Christine Daae might just be the sweetest thing that has ever happened to him.
She won't even look at him when he reenters, which makes Erik's eyes glaze over with pain. So he kneels before her, takes her trembling hand, and places it over his chest.
Do you feel this?
She nods, gaze still fixated upon the floor.
This heart beats for you. For all of you. Do you understand?
It takes a moment, but when she finally meets his gaze, Christine's eyes are black with hunger. For a split second, Erik is taken aback by the sudden disappearance of his demure wife, but he doesn't protest when she begins to free the buttons on his collar with slow, purposeful hands. Instead, he returns the favor, coaxing her dress over her waist, her shoulders, the top of her head...
Suddenly, Erik is paralyzed. So much skin! Christine has bared herself to him in the most intoxicating of ways, and his hands cannot agree on which part of her to touch first. Instead, they touch nothing at all. Were she a younger girl, Christine might have found herself wounded by his inaction. But here, like this, she feels very much like a woman, and his wide, grateful eyes betray his wonder. So she lets him stare, reveling in her capacity to bewitch him.
The stillness lasts for only a moment longer, and then everything happens at once. Erik paws greedily at her breasts as she throws his arms around his neck, pulling herself into his lap. They find each other's lips, and the rest of his clothes pool around their bare bodies as the firelight casts wicked shadows upon them.
They lay in a heap of sweaty limbs on the floor, both too comfortable to consider moving to their bed. Christine finds her favorite part of Erik's chest to rest her head upon, and Erik's fingers busy themselves by tracing circles over the dimples at the small of her back.
He thinks she's fallen asleep, so he too closes his eyes. But when swollen, greedy lips place fervent kisses along his jaw, his body roars awake. Just like a thirsty traveler might rush to the sight of a stream, their bodies find each other again and again, until the sun rises and the birds chirp their disbelief over the pair's ceaseless desire.