Chapter Seven - To Taste Him Without Tears

His words seemed to lash across the small space between them, so brutal that she scrambled to her feet and stepped back from him.

"Angel, I never meant..."

He grabbed her by her shoulders, his voice was a biting whisper against her neck.

"The Angel of Music is dead and buried. You know that all too well. He died that night in the snow...on the roof. Now, there is only a ghost...a ghost named Erik."

"Erik, I never meant to hurt you. I was a foolish child, I didn't know my own heart until you sent me away. I have paid the price, living every day with my regrets.".

"How prettily you lie, Madame," he said, pushing her aside as if she meant no more to him than a bit of the heavy, faded velvet drapes that surrounded them.

"Did you," he continued, "use that particular talent on your husband in order to come here?"

"I have never lied to you," she retorted, keeping a sob barely in check as some of his bitterness seemed to seep into her heart, "I would have stayed with you. When I kissed you...it was my vow to you that I..."

She stopped...how could such mundane things as words explain what that kiss was, what promises had been intended, what desires were hidden it...

She stepped close to him, so close that their bodies almost touched. Before he could turn away from her again, she caught his face in her hands. She felts the heat of his flesh beneath one palm, the cool of his mask beneath the other.

Gently, she drew his face to hers and kissed him. All these months, she had longed for this, to feel his lips against hers, to taste him without tears.

But nothing had prepared her for this.

His hands tightened around her waist, the stays of her corset once again dug into her. She felt herself pushed back against the stone wall of the chamber, the rock grating against her shoulders as he responded to her kiss with a passion that bordered on fury.

His hands slid lower, pressing against her hips as his mouth burned her lips, her throat, the soft curve of her collarbone.

"Erik...Angel..." she whispered, wrapping her arms around his strong shoulders.

He was still against her, looking down into her eyes. He pulled his hands away from her abruptly.

Keeping her body pinned between the heat of his own and the chill of the wall, he reached up and tore off his mask.

"Is this what you want, Christine?"